Editorial: lymphatic filariasis endemicity - an indicator of poverty?

Abstract

Health is a cherished human value shared across geopolitical and sociocultural divides. It is thus a sad indictment on our global morality that despite enormous biomedical advances and global economic prosperity in the past few decades, huge disparities in health status persist between and often within countries. The Public Health movement, notwithstanding an apparent metamorphosis from the ‘Old’ to the ‘New’, has largely failed to narrow the health divide between wealthy and poor nations. In no sphere is this disparity more obvious than that of infectious diseases. Thirty per cent of the global burden of disease and a quarter of all deaths are still attributed to infectious diseases, and more than 95% of these deaths occur in the developing world where poverty is prevalent (Gwatkin et al. 1999; Folch et al. 2003).